pl0bs wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:plubbers carries around the assumption that C is some sort of fundamental substance. He carries it in his cheek like a squirrel's favorite nut. It's a religion. One that we deserve to have visited upon us, because most of us have fundamental assumptions that are just as sick and twisted when it comes to the mind. Representationalism, containerism, computationalism, spirit-mind, etc.

It is not a precious nut however. It's actually a nicely compacted piece of shit. The kind of shit philosophy should be concerned with eliminating.

You can't argue with a shit-nut-packer using more shit-nuts. IMO.

Im just following logic: if emergence doesnt happen anywhere in the natural world, why believe it does happen brains with consciousness? Thats not just special pleading, it is supernatural by definition.

All ive got from you is that you do not like the conclusion (that C didnt emerge), but youve never actually addressed the cold hard logic.

There ya go. Cold hard logic. Emergence happens everywhere in the natural world. So everything you derive from your false premise falls apart. Every single word you have written here boils down to this one simple shit-nut you tightly clench in your cheek. So go away now and have another think at it.

Animavore wrote:They do, according to The Tale of Dueling Neurosurgeons, both have very tiny corpus callosum.

...

But are they so small that each of the two conjoined twins is a split personality, making a total of four personalities?

Animavore wrote:Here's an interesting case of multiple consciousness in (arguably) one body. The case of conjoint twins, Krista and Tatiana hogan.

Thanks for that. Fascinating.



Here's how it works.

I hope they learn to paint or draw their field of view, so that we can get an idea of that is like, given that they are always looking in different directions from each other. Would they draw/paint different pictures?

pl0bs wrote:

Animavore wrote:I don't even take it for granted that consciousness is a thing which is 'attatched' to my body. It's like saying Crash Bandicoot is attached to my PlayStation, rather than being a product of its functioning. I can't answer your questions as they follow from a faulty and rather incoherent premise.

There can easily be two crash bandicoots on a PS. So you think there can be multiple Cs in one body?

Love this. Is there a Crash Bandicoot inside your PS? Is Crash Bancootness a property of all matter now?

Yes, I think the way a PS can generate multiple Crash Bandandicoots is a little like how a brain might generate multiple 'conscious selves'.

Animavore wrote:Here's an interesting case of multiple consciousness in (arguably) one body. The case of conjoint twins, Krista and Tatiana hogan.

In my view, in such cases we don't have one body/organism but a fusion of two bodies/organisms. That is, there are two overlapping bodies/organisms. They overlap in the mereological sense of sharing some parts. Overlapping things are partially identical. There are degrees of overlap and degrees of partial identity.
Note that partially identical things aren't distinct or disjoint, but they are still numerically different.

"[T]he real opposite of identity is distinctness; not distinctness in the sense of non-identity, but rather distinctness in the sense of non-overlap (what is called 'disjointness' in the jargon of those who reserve 'distinct' to mean 'non-identical')."

(Lewis, David. "Many, but Almost One." 1993. Reprinted in Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, 164-182. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. p. 17)

Animavore wrote:They do, according to The Tale of Dueling Neurosurgeons, both have very tiny corpus callosum.

There is some interesting things about them. They often speak at exactly the same time and always use the pronoun I. They share things like taste, but one doesn't like some things the other does and will put on a face of disgust while the other shows delight. Sometimes they fight each other even though they will hurt themselves in the process making for an almost comedic routine of hitting and wincing as if they'd hit themselves.

...

In a way, their form of conjoinedness is kinder than the usual forms, which do not involve directly shared thoughts. They are "as one" in a way that none other are, AFAIK.
I note that the video above is about three years old, but a quick internet search revealed that they are still going strong three years after. In fact, they are doing better, because the potential heart problem has apparently been resolved naturally. Thus, Iook forward to hearing about further progress, in understanding how their shared vision, in particular, works.

Teuton wrote:

Animavore wrote:Here's an interesting case of multiple consciousness in (arguably) one body. The case of conjoint twins, Krista and Tatiana hogan.

In my view, in such cases we don't have one body/organism but a fusion of two bodies/organisms. That is, there are two overlapping bodies/organisms. They overlap in the mereological sense of sharing some parts. Overlapping things are partially identical. There are degrees of overlap and degrees of partial identity.
Note that partially identical things aren't distinct or disjoint, but they are still numerically different.

"[T]he real opposite of identity is distinctness; not distinctness in the sense of non-identity, but rather distinctness in the sense of non-overlap (what is called 'disjointness' in the jargon of those who reserve 'distinct' to mean 'non-identical')."

(Lewis, David. "Many, but Almost One." 1993. Reprinted in Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, 164-182. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. p. 17)

Two bodies / organisms is debateable in this case. They are Monozygotic twins, so one egg, one sperm, sharing chromosomes. Is it possible to tell which part of the pair a tissue sample is taken from?

The fact that they share sensory experience, and perhaps thoughts, further blurs the issue.

GrahamH wrote:

Teuton wrote:

Animavore wrote:Here's an interesting case of multiple consciousness in (arguably) one body. The case of conjoint twins, Krista and Tatiana hogan.

In my view, in such cases we don't have one body/organism but a fusion of two bodies/organisms. That is, there are two overlapping bodies/organisms.

Two bodies / organisms is debateable in this case. They are Monozygotic twins, so one egg, one sperm, sharing chromosomes. Is it possible to tell which part of the pair a tissue sample is taken from?

Disjoint monozygotic twins are two organisms, so why should conjoint ones be one organism. By the way, just by speaking of "conjoint twins" we tacitly presuppose that there are two organisms, since one organism cannot be conjoined with itself.

GrahamH wrote:The fact that they share sensory experience, and perhaps thoughts, further blurs the issue.

I think the psychological aspects are irrelevant to the biological question of the number of organisms.

Teuton wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Teuton wrote:

Animavore wrote:Here's an interesting case of multiple consciousness in (arguably) one body. The case of conjoint twins, Krista and Tatiana hogan.

In my view, in such cases we don't have one body/organism but a fusion of two bodies/organisms. That is, there are two overlapping bodies/organisms.

Two bodies / organisms is debateable in this case. They are Monozygotic twins, so one egg, one sperm, sharing chromosomes. Is it possible to tell which part of the pair a tissue sample is taken from?

Disjoint monozygotic twins are two organisms, so why should conjoint ones be one organism.

For exactly the same reason your right arm, even if severed and reattached, is part of one organism.
If separation occurs and persists then we have two organisms due to the separation.

Teuton wrote:
Disjoint monozygotic twins are two organisms, so why should conjoint ones be one organism.

The twins share the same respiratory system, and at one stage one twin was pumping blood for the two. I don't see how any medical procedure could be done without taking them both as a whole. And I'm sure if one died the other wouldn't be far off. You can't even say that they are two separate individuals with their own thoughts and emotions in this case.

Teuton wrote:By the way, just by speaking of "conjoint twins" we tacitly presuppose that there are two organisms, since one organism cannot be conjoined with itself.

Only if we focus on the "twin" aspect of "conjoint twins". I don't see why the biology of these over-lapping people should be restricted to strict English definitions anyway.

Teuton wrote:
I think the psychological aspects are irrelevant to the biological question of the number of organisms.

Only if you treat the psychological aspect as something separate from the organism.

Teuton wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Teuton wrote:

Animavore wrote:Here's an interesting case of multiple consciousness in (arguably) one body. The case of conjoint twins, Krista and Tatiana hogan.

In my view, in such cases we don't have one body/organism but a fusion of two bodies/organisms. That is, there are two overlapping bodies/organisms.

Two bodies / organisms is debateable in this case. They are Monozygotic twins, so one egg, one sperm, sharing chromosomes. Is it possible to tell which part of the pair a tissue sample is taken from?

Disjoint monozygotic twins are two organisms, so why should conjoint ones be one organism. By the way, just by speaking of "conjoint twins" we tacitly presuppose that there are two organisms, since one organism cannot be conjoined with itself.

GrahamH wrote:The fact that they share sensory experience, and perhaps thoughts, further blurs the issue.

I think the psychological aspects are irrelevant to the biological question of the number of organisms.

Why do you think that? These particular conjoined twins share thoughts, so surely that blurs the line between them as organisms. I also doubt that it would ever be possible to separate them without killing at least one of them. Most conjoined twins can be separated, but not these, IMO. I also doubt that they want to be separated, at the moment, at least, since they would be losing so much from the separation.

GrahamH wrote:

Teuton wrote:For exactly the same reason your right arm, even if severed and reattached, is part of one organism. If separation occurs and persists then we have two organisms due to the separation.

I don't think so. A mere arm is not an (animal) organism, is it?

GrahamH wrote:

Teuton wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Teuton wrote:
In my view, in such cases we don't have one body/organism but a fusion of two bodies/organisms. That is, there are two overlapping bodies/organisms.

Two bodies / organisms is debateable in this case. They are Monozygotic twins, so one egg, one sperm, sharing chromosomes. Is it possible to tell which part of the pair a tissue sample is taken from?

Disjoint monozygotic twins are two organisms, so why should conjoint ones be one organism.

For exactly the same reason your right arm, even if severed and reattached, is part of one organism.
If separation occurs and persists then we have two organisms due to the separation.

I suspect that your second sentence doesn't reference the first, but, rather, refers back to the video on the conjoined twins.
At least, I hope so!

Teuton wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Teuton wrote:For exactly the same reason your right arm, even if severed and reattached, is part of one organism. If separation occurs and persists then we have two organisms due to the separation.

I don't think so. A mere arm is not an (animal) organism, is it?

If you donate an arm to another person is that person now two organisms or one?

DavidMcC wrote:Why do you think that? These particular conjoined twins share thoughts, so surely that blurs the line between them as organisms.

Presumably from a philosophical and biological point of view it points out the unsharp edges regarding what the word/concept 'organism' means.
The line and the blurring is in us rather than them.

A 'single' fungus may spread out over a huge area of forest, and a single spreading plant might extend over some distance with multiple stems. Division by a spade may result in definitely distinct entities with only a negligible fraction of the initial cells being killed in the process, but does the potential for separation and subsequent independent existence mean the initial entity isn't one organism, or does it indicate a categorisation difficulty?

We can invent a definition of 'organism' which makes things simpler for a human, but that makes no difference to what actually exists.

tolman wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:Why do you think that? These particular conjoined twins share thoughts, so surely that blurs the line between them as organisms.

Presumably from a philosophical and biological point of view it rather points out the unsharp edges regarding what the word/concept 'organism' means.

A 'single' fungus may spread out over a huge area of forest, and a single spreading plant might extend over some distance with multiple stems. Division by a spade may result in definitely distinct entities with only a negligible fraction of the initial cells being killed in the process, but does the potential for separation and subsequent independent existence mean the initial entity isn't one organism, or does it indicate a categorisation difficulty?

IMO, it indicates a categorisation difficulty. The word, "species" is much more appropriate to animals than to plants. Plants are also much more prone to hybridisation than animals are.

Animavore wrote:

Teuton wrote:
Disjoint monozygotic twins are two organisms, so why should conjoint ones be one organism.

The twins share the same respiratory system, and at one stage one twin was pumping blood for the two. I don't see how any medical procedure could be done without taking them both as a whole. And I'm sure if one died the other wouldn't be far off.

The two organisms may be physiologically dependent on and physically inseparable from one another, but I still count two organisms that failed to develop into two distinct, i.e. non-overlapping, individuals.

Animavore wrote:You can't even say that they are two separate individuals with their own thoughts and emotions in this case.

I don't think it's impossible for two overlapping organisms to share their mental lives or parts thereof by having some identical brain-parts or even an identical brain. There are very rare pathological cases called "Cephalopagus", where we have conjoined twins with heads fused but the remainder of the bodies separate. Unfortunately, as far as I know, they all die soon after birth, so that no psychological experiments can be done with them.
Moreover, such cases are multiply interpretable: Does the one head really belong to both bodies or only to one? In the former case we have a case of total head fusion, and in the latter case we haven't because one organism has a head and the other one is headless. In this case there'd be no common mental life, since one organism of the two wouldn't have any mental life at all due to its lack of a head and a brain.

Animavore wrote:

Teuton wrote:I think the psychological aspects are irrelevant to the biological question of the number of organisms.

Only if you treat the psychological aspect as something separate from the organism.

No, because the biological identity of a conscious organism doesn't depend in any way on its mental properties.

tolman wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:Why do you think that? These particular conjoined twins share thoughts, so surely that blurs the line between them as organisms.

Presumably from a philosophical and biological point of view it rather points out the unsharp edges regarding what the word/concept 'organism' means.

A 'single' fungus may spread out over a huge area of forest, and a single spreading plant might extend over some distance with multiple stems. Division by a spade may result in definitely distinct entities with only a negligible fraction of the initial cells being killed in the process, but does the potential for separation and subsequent independent existence mean the initial entity isn't one organism, or does it indicate a categorisation difficulty?

The "potential" for separation in twins usually involves the wonders of modern science to be able to tie up all of the right tubes and portion our the parts correctly. Usually Siamese twins fall under the Wiki definition of 'organism' -

In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system, such as a vertebrate, insect, plant or bacterium.

Conjoint twins are certainly contiguous living systems, and even more so than the mushrooms which can be cut in two so much more easily. If you cut one the usually both bleed.

I don't think there is a category difficulty here at all. The mushrooms just go from one contiguous system into two.